As interim coach Brian Bliss prepares to lead the Crew into a game tonight at the New England Revolution, there is movement in the effort to find the next permanent coach.

After starting with a list of more than 100 leads and applicants, Crew president and general manager Mark McCullers said the list of finalists will be down to six or fewer by the end of next week.

“We want to make a decision and get moving as quickly as possible,” McCullers said yesterday. “We think reasonably certainly after the season, but mid-November we’d like to have this wrapped up and have someone hired.”

Although McCullers declined to confirm or deny any of the finalists for the position, a source confirmed to The Dispatch that Guillermo Barros Schelotto interviewed with McCullers and new team investor-operator Anthony Precourt more than a week ago.

Schelotto, who played for the Crew from 2007 to ’10 and was named MVP of Major League Soccer while leading the Crew to the MLS Cup in 2008, also has interviewed for the coaching position for expansion club New York City FC, which will begin play in 2015. He currently coaches first-division club Lanus in his native Argentina.

McCullers said the Crew has interviewed “head coaches from overseas, we’ve talked with coaches from national team pools, we will have talked with collegiate-level coaches, MLS assistants, former MLS head coaches, USL Pro coaches” for the job.

Bliss, who served as team technical director for six years, was named interim coach when Robert Warzycha was fired in September. The Crew has gone 4-2-0 under Bliss and remains in the playoff hunt, albeit by a thread, entering the penultimate weekend of the season.

The Crew likely is to restructure its front office as part of this process. Although no decisions have been made, Bliss reiterated this week that he hopes to retain the coaching job.

“I’ve told (Precourt and McCullers) before that I enjoy working at the club and want to be here,” he said. “Regardless of the decision they make on the coaching side, I still think I’ve got a lot to offer on the technical director side. If they go with somebody else, I told them I want to stay on, but in the end, that’s going to be their choice how they want to move forward.”

Although Bliss has publicly said he has been given little feedback on how he has been evaluated, he is a finalist for the full-time position, McCullers said.

“I think he’s done a fantastic job,” McCullers said. “I think that the players have responded to him. I think that his management of training and his organizational skills and his style and demeanor, I think it’s all been really good. Obviously, the results are showing that.”

Bliss, who still serves as technical director, has not been involved in the coaching search. In addition to Precourt, McCullers said Crew Juniors executive director Andrew Arthurs and Crew brand ambassador and former player Frankie Hejduk have assisted in the process.

Precourt’s hands-on approach has been refreshing, McCullers said.

“Anthony has been really engaged, if not leading the process, which has been very helpful,” he said. “It’s nice to have an owner right there instead of adding a step of having to do all this work and then go back to the owner and report in and have questions asked. It’s just been a very efficient process and I’ve been very pleased with it.”